Salvation and Suicide: An Interpretation of Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown (Religion in North America)

Salvation and Suicide: An Interpretation of Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown (Religion in North America)
by David Chidester

Salvation and Suicide: An Interpretation of Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown (Religion in North America)
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Book Summary Information

Author: David Chidester
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-10-16
ISBN: 025321632X
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Indiana University Press

Book Reviews of Salvation and Suicide: An Interpretation of Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown (Religion in North America)

Book Review: The Religious View of Jonestown, Jim Jones and the People's Temple!
Summary: 5 Stars

This book is not about true crime but about the religious outlook and theory regarding about revolutionary suicide, cults, and Jim Jones' religious teachings. It's not about the mass murder that occurred in Jonestown but about the author's research into the religious aspect of Jonestown. I wished the author had placed some pictures besides the one on the book. The horrible, tragic mass murder that occurred on November 18, 1978 was not the first white night which were mass suicide drills. This time, it was real for everybody. There was poison in their drinks and Jim Jones was not joking that this was it. But why did he think this way? Where did this theology come from in the first place? The book attempts to answer the questions about the event's religious impact. I read about revolutionary suicide which I did not know before. As the years pass, the Jonestown Holocaust slowly goes unnoticed except for the few documentaries and visits. Jonestown was not just about Jim Jones but about the socialism, communism, and collective lives there in Guyana which went horribly wrong. I encourage anybody interested in reading about Jonestown, the People's Temple, and Jim Jones beyond the criminal acts and the governments' failures in preventing this tragedy.

Summary of Salvation and Suicide: An Interpretation of Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown (Religion in North America)

Praise for the first edition:
"[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."

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