RELIGION: 101 PART FOUR

In any study there are some that stand out with controversial views. As we step into the world of “Christian” religions it appears that anything goes, as long as the Name of Jesus is included.

In our research for this article LJG and myself have come across much that we feel strongly should be included. This you might think to be extreme. They are vivid and in some cases graphic. I have included this so that you can realize that the extreme that is apparent to most is not to all. Also that you can hopefully see that the accepted religions that are telling great untruths are just as harmful as these that are not so bane before our eyes.

We are going to take a step back in time now. Those of us whom are older will sigh and say yes we remember. Younger people might or might not have heard some of these stories. All of these groups started out on what appeared to be the right path.

People’s Temple was founded by Jim Jones in Indiana in the 1950’s. Moving in 1965 to Redwood Valley, California the church officially opened in 1969. Jones and his church earned a reputation for helping the poor, racial minorities, drug addicts and the homeless. Soup kitchens, daycare centers and medical clinics for the elderly were set up. They also started counseling programs for prostitutes and drug addicts that wanted to change their lives.

People’s temple had strong connections to the California state welfare system. In the 1970’s they owned and operated at lest 9 residential care homes for the elderly. Six homes for foster children, and a state-licensed 40-arce ranch for developmentally disabled people. They also had a college tuition and dormitory program at Santa Rosa Junior College. A client-advocacy group within the church handled member’s insurance claims and legal problems.

The church had a complex leadership structure that was dispersed among its members. At the core were Jones and his inner circle, but members of a Planning Commission [approximately 100 members] also had much of the power, such as the day-to-day operation of the Temple.

Disturbing accounts began to surface as members began to leave the group. Including but not limited to Jones stealing from his followers, faked miracle healings, members punished severely, practiced sodomy, and that Jones considered himself the new Messiah.

Jones reacted by saying the defectors were lying, and the outside world was trying to destroy them. With this came more reports of abuse from former members, and stories of members being forces to remain against their will.

Due to the increasing scrutiny Jones moved over 900 members to Guyana. They were promised a tropical paradise, free from the wickedness of the outside world. They were in fact forced to work by Jones’s orders, and together they built Jonestown.

In November of 1978 US Congressman Leo Ryan from California visited the group in Guyana. He was investigating claims of abuse within the group. A number of group members expressed a desire to leave with the Congressman, and the entire group of them went to the airstrip with him. There Temple guards fired on the group. Captured on film were the killing of Congressman Ryan, three journalists, a Temple member, and the journalist filming the attack.

Later that day Jones ordered his members to drink cyanide-laced grape flavored Flavor Aid. There were 909 corpses found, 276 of them children. Some were found to have been forcibility injected with cyanide, some were found to be shot. Jim Jones was found sitting upright in His throne chair on a platform with a shotgun wound to his head. It has never been determined if it was self inflicted.

Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles founded Heaven’s Gate. They combined Christian and Theosophical doctrines with beliefs in UFO’s. The cult began attracting followers in 1975.
The believed themselves to have come from the Next Level [heaven] to find individuals who would dedicate themselves to preparing for the spaceship that would take them there. They claimed they were the two witnesses referred to in Revelation 11 who had been raised from the dead after spreading the word of God. They also believed that Applewhite was the Second Coming of Jesus Christ incarnate, and Nettles was the Heavenly Father.

Applewhite and Nettles believed that evil space aliens had kept people tied to the human level, only they could provide the insight needed to prepare others to go to the Next Level. Members were expected to give up all human attachments including family, friends, sexual relationships, and gender.

They lead a very monastic lifestyle, male-female partnerships were formed so each member could form an ‘awareness of the human qualities each person had to overcome.” Next members wore uniforms that were designed to conceal their gender. They were discouraged from any contact with the outside world.

Additionally, seven members, including Applewhite, had themselves castrated in order to control their sexual urges. Fourth, Applewhite and Nettles had group members engage in a series of activities or rituals that kept them busy for nearly all parts of the day. For example, an activity called "a tone," where group members were to keep themselves focused on a tone produced from a tuning fork at all times while doing other activities. The idea was to keep the group members focused on the Next Level, while ignoring human thoughts.

In 1997 the Heaven's Gate members were living in a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California, where the group had been earning a living as web page designers. Applewhite became convinced that Nettles, who had died of cancer in 1985, was piloting a spaceship in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet to take them to the Next Level. However, they could not go in their human form, so they committed suicide to shed their "physical containers".

The suicide began on March 22, 1997. On day one, fifteen members ate applesauce or pudding laced with Phenobarbital and drank vodka, and then other members helped fasten plastic bags around their heads to asphyxiate them. After their deaths, the plastic bags were removed and they were covered with a purple shroud. On the second day, the process was repeated for another fifteen members, followed by another seven members. Finally, the mass suicide was completed when the last two members killed themselves.

In total there were thirty-nine people (20 women and 19 men) who committed suicide. The group members ranged in age from their twenties to age seventy-two. When the bodies were discovered, they were all dressed in black and covered with a purple shroud. On their left shoulders group members had a patch that read "Heaven's Gate Away Team," which was an apparent reference to the television show Star Trek: The Next Generation. Additionally, "Each person had a $5 bill and quarters in the front shirt pocket".

Heaven's Gate was different from other cults that have decided to commit violence in that there were no children involved. Heaven's Gate members believed that only adults were prepared to make the decision about whether or not to go to the Next Level.

There are several lines of evidence that suggest the members of Heaven's Gate were highly committed to voluntarily taking their own lives. First, the highly coordinated suicide (i.e., a farewell tape, preparation of the bodies) suggests that this was a well-thought-out plan. Second, the suicide took several days, yet no one tried to escape, unlike Jonestown where some members hid or escaped into the jungle. Moreover, two group members of Heaven's Gate who did not commit suicide in March later killed themselves in a similar ritualistic manner.

This is a look at just two of the cult groups. We have a few more we want you to read about. The purpose being that the wolf does not always appear in sheep’s clothing that is as apparent as these. Some of the religions that we will look at are just as dangerous as these, but have been accepted for centuries. The problem is none of them lead to heaven and streets of gold with Our Savior Jesus Christ.

God Bless
rECj/LJG