Jonestown's Holy Communion
Last night, I attended a mass at a local Catholic church. I'm not Catholic, but there is much that I admire in their tradition of morals, education, and charity. When it was time to have communion, those from the church-- mainly middle school kids-- lined up to take a wafer and sip from a brass globlet of wine, bowing first and then returning to their seats to kneel.
The priest assured us that the wine was "actually" the blood of Jesus. My background is low Baptist, and so my view of the wine (or grape juice in the case of my church) is that there is nothing mystical about it. The elements are as Luke 17:19 states: a remembrance. It's like the U.S. flag, evoking within us feelings of pride in our heritage, the Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon, our constitution, our diversity and power. But the flag itself is not the United States. It is a piece of cloth that represents the United states. In the same way, the bread and the wine is not God. It is something that represents what God did. But this is a trivial nuance of dogma, and there is no need to dwell on it.
Watching the children line up to take communion reminded me of a documentary that I saw on the History Channel the night before about the Jim Jones cult, in which 913 people, including 276 children, committed "revolutionary suicide" in 1978. It was an incident that impressed me at the time, provoking me to write a letter to TIME that was published in the December 25th edition. "Jones saw the handwriting on the wall, and the words spelled nuclear war," I wrote. "So, choosing to march to a different drumbeat, Jones' disciples followed him into the jungle. Their humanistic dream: to build a better world. But, as it turned out, the handwriting was a forgery, the drummer was mad, the humanism bankrupt, and the dream a nightmare." The documentary showed kids and teenagers lining up to take their cynide-laced Flavor-Aid joy juice. A few resisted Jones' communion of death and were either injected or shot. But the majority were swept into annihilation by a collective death wish.
It is both scary and fascinating to see how organizations can envelope even tough-minded people. In the Jones case, there were a few people who protested, most notably, Christine Miller. The transcript of the final moments of those who died is chilling, as it reveals the power of pathological group thinking. In the back-and-forth between Christine Miller and Jones, the balance could have tipped towards life, but the force of the fanaticism of the true believers was too great. So she, along with Jones and almost a thousand others died.
I'm not suggesting a parallel with the Catholic church and this aberrant death-cult. However, even in religious organizations that are life-affirming, we must remain ever vigilant against losing our soul in the name of a supposed greater good.
The priest assured us that the wine was "actually" the blood of Jesus. My background is low Baptist, and so my view of the wine (or grape juice in the case of my church) is that there is nothing mystical about it. The elements are as Luke 17:19 states: a remembrance. It's like the U.S. flag, evoking within us feelings of pride in our heritage, the Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon, our constitution, our diversity and power. But the flag itself is not the United States. It is a piece of cloth that represents the United states. In the same way, the bread and the wine is not God. It is something that represents what God did. But this is a trivial nuance of dogma, and there is no need to dwell on it.
Watching the children line up to take communion reminded me of a documentary that I saw on the History Channel the night before about the Jim Jones cult, in which 913 people, including 276 children, committed "revolutionary suicide" in 1978. It was an incident that impressed me at the time, provoking me to write a letter to TIME that was published in the December 25th edition. "Jones saw the handwriting on the wall, and the words spelled nuclear war," I wrote. "So, choosing to march to a different drumbeat, Jones' disciples followed him into the jungle. Their humanistic dream: to build a better world. But, as it turned out, the handwriting was a forgery, the drummer was mad, the humanism bankrupt, and the dream a nightmare." The documentary showed kids and teenagers lining up to take their cynide-laced Flavor-Aid joy juice. A few resisted Jones' communion of death and were either injected or shot. But the majority were swept into annihilation by a collective death wish.
It is both scary and fascinating to see how organizations can envelope even tough-minded people. In the Jones case, there were a few people who protested, most notably, Christine Miller. The transcript of the final moments of those who died is chilling, as it reveals the power of pathological group thinking. In the back-and-forth between Christine Miller and Jones, the balance could have tipped towards life, but the force of the fanaticism of the true believers was too great. So she, along with Jones and almost a thousand others died.
I'm not suggesting a parallel with the Catholic church and this aberrant death-cult. However, even in religious organizations that are life-affirming, we must remain ever vigilant against losing our soul in the name of a supposed greater good.
Labels: cult
posted by My Mall & News at
4:26 PM
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