When Politics Becomes Prophecy: The Road from Political Fear to Jonestown

(Editor’s note: John Collins is a regular contributor to the jonestown report. His collections of articles for this site may be found here. For more information about this research, see Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon.com. More information about Rev. Branham prepared by John Collins may be found at the William Branham Historical Research informational website. A video presentation of the history can be found here.

When historians analyze the events leading to the Jonestown Massacre of 1978, they often describe the social, financial, and political landscape in which Peoples Temple developed. Numerous events either directly or indirectly influenced Jim Jones as he tried to navigate the turmoil of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Many of those themes made their way into his sermons and speeches, from Watergate to Cambodia, Vietnam, racism, economic instability, excessive governmental power, nuclear weapons, and more.[1] As the leader of his movement, Jones became the person his faithful converts looked to for answers.

The question historians often overlook is one that becomes especially important when Peoples Temple is examined alongside other religious movements emerging from the same postwar revival environment: At what point does political opinion become prophecy?

Peoples Temple developed amid a post-World War II religious culture in which current events were frequently interpreted through biblical prophecy. Jones himself had significant contact with the healing-revival world, including figures connected with William Branham and Joseph Mattsson-Boze.[2] Within the broader revival culture, elections, wars, Communism, nuclear weapons, Israel, and changes in American society could become more than subjects of political commentary. They could become signs that history was moving toward a prophetically predetermined conclusion.

Jones appears to have used a method already familiar within the revival environment around him. When he offered his own political commentary, he did not always stop at describing what had happened or speculating about what might happen next. He claimed to know where these events were leading.

You’ll need me one day. You’ll need me one day. ‘Cause I’m gonna tell you what they’re gonna do, I’ve prophesied the date, the hour, the minute and the year, they’re gonna put people in this country in concentration camps. They’re gonna put them in gas ovens, just like they did the Jews. They’ve started at Watergate, and they’ve told you in the paper today, that we have been lied to at Cambodia, that we’ve bombed the wrong people, that we’ve killed innocent children, that you were lied to, and they’re just seeing how much the people care. And if you don’t resist, if you don’t rise up and demand honest government, it’s not going to be long, if we don’t let the government be upon his shoulders, that they’re gonna put you in the concentration camps.
– Jim Jones. 1973. [3]

Jones was deeply political long before Jonestown. During his early ministry in Indianapolis, he became known as an advocate for racial integration[4] and equality[5] in a city that, only a few decades earlier, had been a major center of political power for the Indiana Ku Klux Klan. He worked among impoverished communities and became increasingly outspoken about socialism and economic inequality.[6] As the years progressed, his sermons became saturated with Cold War politics, fears of nuclear war, opposition to American capitalism, racial injustice, and the possibility of authoritarian government.[7] At the same time, Jones cultivated strategic relationships with politicians and public officials, giving Peoples Temple access to political institutions while strengthening his public image as a religious and community leader.

Probably the most revealing of Jones’ apocalyptic predictions was his later identification of Redwood Valley as a place of refuge from the coming catastrophe. It is critically important to examine the timeline of prophecy, as it suggests a gradual development in which Jones’ existing fears of nuclear destruction eventually incorporated elements of the apocalyptic preaching found within the healing-revival environment to which he had earlier been exposed.[8]

By the mid-1950s, Branham was publicly attributing a series of predictions concerning catastrophic events and the future of the United States to visions he said he had received in 1933.[9] Apocalyptic preaching was hardly unique to Branham, but fears of nuclear war, Communism, divine judgment, and the approaching end of the world became recurring themes within the broader postwar revival environment. Different leaders offered different predictions and solutions, but the underlying message was remarkably consistent: The End of Days was approaching, current events were signs of its arrival, and prophetic voices could reveal what was coming.

Later accounts place Jones’ own fears of nuclear destruction as early as 1961, when he reportedly described a vision of nuclear holocaust.[10] In January 1962, Esquire published “Nine Places in the World to Hide,” identifying locations considered relatively safe during nuclear war. Jones subsequently traveled to Brazil, another location associated with his search for safety from nuclear catastrophe. After returning to the United States in late 1963, he began preparing for the eventual relocation of Peoples Temple to northern California. By 1964, members of his inner circle were establishing themselves there, and in 1965 Jones and much of his congregation relocated to Redwood Valley.

It was during this period, on December 27, 1964, that Branham made one of his clearest predictions concerning the catastrophic destruction of California:

And the world again is just about to come to pieces. Look at the earthquakes over here in California. I predict, before the coming of the Lord Jesus, that God will sink that place. I believe that Hollywood and Los Angeles, and them filthy places over there, that God Almighty will sink them.
– William Branham, December 27, 1964.[11]

While later accounts attribute a nuclear vision to Jones as early as 1961, no surviving sermon from that period has yet been identified in which Jones publicly describes the much more specific prophetic geography he would later proclaim: catastrophic destruction in California, geological upheaval, and Redwood Valley as a place of refuge.

By 1973, Jones was explicitly telling his followers that a “great cataclysm” would strike the continent and particularly California, while making the extraordinary exception for Redwood Valley. His scenario combined nuclear holocaust with a massive earthquake along the San Andreas Fault and the destruction of land west of the fault into the Pacific Ocean. Jones went even further, claiming that the timing of the catastrophe had been given to him “by revelation.”

Now we have so many things to maintain. You say, you always doing so much. Say, why are you protecting things up in Redwood Valley? Well, Redwood Valley is for the great apocalypse. If we have a nuclear holocaust with an earth tremor that will split off all through the San Andreas Fault, and drop everything west of the San Andreas Fault into the sea, then we’re prepared, because I’ve got a cavern deep, deep in the mountains that can take care of every one of you. No fallout can get to you, no radiation can get to you. You’re warm, it’s constant temperature, 55 to 62 degrees all year long, down there where I’ve got that. And we’ve got food for that. Say, well, how many emergencies can there be? There can be that emergency, it’s definitely gonna take place on one sixteen at 3:09, our people, those that were in the meeting when it came by revelation, know exactly the day, the month, the minute, the year. I will tell everyone about it two weeks before. But in the meantime, there could be a dictatorship that would sweep in. So we have to be prepared to take our flight to the valley in the case of great desolation or the apocalypse or the Armageddon that would spring forth in a nuclear hell, as Peter said, when the elements melt with a fervent heat. We have to be prepared for that, but we also have to be prepared to go to other places in the world if a dictatorship takes over, because I told you – and I never have broke my word – I told you, not one of my children’s gonna end up in a concentration camp. I said they’ll have to kill us all first.
Jones, Jim. Q958.

By this point, Jones had transformed several legitimate political and geopolitical concerns into something much more powerful. Nuclear war was no longer merely possible; Jones said it was “definitely gonna take place.” Dictatorship and concentration camps were no longer hypothetical dangers. They were events for which his followers needed to prepare. Even the geography of catastrophe had become prophetic: Jones claimed to know where destruction would occur, where his followers could survive, and that the exact timing had come to him “by revelation.”[12]

This raises the question as to whether Jones developed this method of interpreting current events in isolation.

The surviving evidence suggests that he did not. Nearly two decades before the Q958 recording, Jones had been welcomed into a religious network in which current events, apocalyptic expectation, and claims of divine revelation were already deeply connected.[13]

On May 2, 1955, Joseph Mattsson-Boze wrote Jones, “You represent that kind of spirit that is the true latter rain,”[14] within the context of the post-1948 Latter Rain movement in which Mattsson-Boze was active. Mattsson-Boze provided Jones with William Branham’s private contact information and recommended several other ministers within his network, including A. W. Rasmussen (the founder of the Independent Assemblies of God[15]), Clair Hutchens (Maranatha Temple, later Brooklyn Tabernacle), as well as other leaders of the movement. In a separate letter dated the same day,[16] Mattsson-Boze personally introduced Jones to Branham, describing Jones as “a servant of God and a bosom friend of mine” and urging Branham to visit Jones’ Indianapolis ministry. These connections culminated in the ministerial network selecting Indianapolis for its 1956 convention, with Jones as host pastor. On October 13, 1955, Mattsson-Boze sent another letter to Jones announcing that he had urged the hundreds of ministers to let Jones host the 1956 convention in Indiana to give attention to Jones’ work.[17]

To historians familiar with the Cold War rhetoric used by many Christian ministers of the era,[18] leveraging fears of concentration camps would not have been particularly unusual.[19] The threat of conflict with the Soviet Union was real, nuclear war was a persistent possibility, and fears of Communist expansion or invasion were frequently amplified from both religious and political platforms. Many Americans feared the worst.

Within the Latter Rain Movement, however, these fears could acquire an additional layer of authority. Political speculation could become prophetic revelation. Latter Rain restorationism taught that the ministries described in Ephesians 4 – apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers – were divinely appointed offices being restored to the end-time Church. Through practices such as the laying on of hands, individuals could be recognized for these ministries and receive or impart spiritual gifts. Apostles and prophets in particular could claim extraordinary authority because they were believed capable of receiving direct revelation concerning God’s plans and coming events.[20]

The connection went beyond correspondence. In February 1956, Jones was formally ordained through the Independent Assemblies of God[21] by Joseph Mattsson-Boze.[22] His ordination certificate described him as having demonstrated his “divine gift and calling” and stated that he had been set apart through “prayer and laying on of hands.” The language closely reflected the restorationist environment in which Jones was developing his ministry.

Within this framework, a minister’s words could carry significance far beyond ordinary preaching or political commentary. William Branham explicitly described these ministries as “five offices,”[23] while elevating prophetic revelation as a means through which the “Word of the Lord” could be delivered to the Church. This concept of the “Spoken Word”[24] – language Jones would also use within his own ministry – could blur the distinction between a minister’s interpretation and a message believed to have come directly from God.

We’re not in a praying house here, we’re in a speaking house. The Spoken Word is here. The Word is made flesh.
– Jim Jones, Transcript Q 353[25]

The significance of this framework for Peoples Temple is not that it proves Jones consciously copied a Latter Rain system of authority. The surviving evidence does not establish that. It does establish, however, that during the formative years of his ministry Jones was immersed in a religious network that recognized divinely appointed offices, direct revelation, supernatural gifts, and prophetic authority. That environment provided a religious vocabulary through which a minister could become more than a pastor offering guidance to his congregation: he could become a divinely appointed authority whose interpretation of current events carried the weight of revelation. That framework is important when examining how Jones eventually positioned himself as the central prophetic authority within Peoples Temple.

Within the Latter Rain Movement and the broader postwar healing revival, interpreting current events – especially wars, elections, Communism, and nuclear threats – as prophetic evidence of the approaching End of Days was already an established practice. In June 1952, Gordon Lindsay, editor of The Voice of Healing, one of the principal organizers of the postwar healing revival, Branham’s campaign manager and later founder of Christ for the Nations Institute, published an article entitled “The Coming Presidential Election and Prophecy.” Lindsay did not simply encourage Christians to participate by voting in the November presidential election. He attempted to place the election itself within a prophetic chronology derived from the number 666 in Revelation 13.

According to Lindsay, a series of 666-day cycles connected major events in modern American history, including the end of the First World War, the Great Depression, the New Deal, and ultimately the presidential election of 1952. A chart accompanying the article announced, “666 DAY CYCLES SHOW SIGNIFICANCE OF THE COMING ELECTION IN NOVEMBER, 1952.”[26] Lindsay argued that “the number 666 startlingly identifies the direction that America has been drifting in recent years,” while cautioning that the pattern could not be blamed entirely upon one political party. In this prophetic framework, an American presidential election was no longer simply the mechanism through which voters selected their government. It had become another marker on an apocalyptic timeline.

The same issue of The Voice of Healing shows that this was not an isolated feature of the magazine’s prophetic worldview. Alongside Lindsay’s article appeared “Prophecy Marches On!”, a recurring column by Army chaplain and evangelist Howard Rusthoi interpreting international crises as signs of the approaching end.[27] The magazine simultaneously advertised literature addressing the possibility of atomic war. For readers immersed in this environment, newspapers could function almost as extensions of prophetic literature: wars, elections, economic crises, Communism, and nuclear weapons supplied the events, while ministers supplied their supernatural meaning.

The relationship between Cold War politics and the healing revival became even more explicit only two years later. In 1954, Vice President Richard Nixon addressed the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International (FGBMFI), an organization that provided an important meeting place for businessmen, politicians, and many of the Pentecostal and healing-revival ministers operating within the same religious world as William Branham. FGBMFI was founded by Pentecostal businessman Demos Shakarian, with Miner Arganbright serving in its early leadership.[28] Arganbright was also closely involved with William Branham’s revival campaigns.[29] Nixon described the Cold War in terms that easily crossed the boundary between political struggle and spiritual warfare. After acknowledging the military, economic, and political dimensions of the conflict, he told the Fellowship that the greater struggle was ultimately “a battle for the minds, and the hearts, and the souls of men.”[30]

Nixon was speaking about the ideological struggle against Communism, not delivering a prophecy. Yet within the religious environment receiving his message, that distinction could become increasingly difficult to maintain. Political leaders warned of Communist expansion and ideological warfare; revivalists warned of Communism, divine judgment, nuclear destruction, and the approaching End of Days. The same crisis could therefore be understood simultaneously as a geopolitical struggle by government officials and as evidence of unfolding biblical prophecy by revivalists.[31]

The overlap between revivalism and Cold War politics was not limited to rhetoric. Some of the people surrounding the healing revival moved directly between religious campaigns and international political networks. One of the most unusual was Baron William T. Frary von Blomberg, who became William Branham’s campaign manager for international campaigns[32] a few years prior to Jones’ connection to Branham.

A few days ago, I was setting with one of the managers, Baron von Blomberg, a baron of Germany in Saint Petersburg, Florida… And he’s had a little German boy that he got out from behind the Russian lines, close to the American zone, where it connects with the Russian zone. He had two young sisters; the Russian soldiers run in was ravishing those girls on the floor. The father run in to take up for them. They shot the father. Taken the girls and the boys up in the camp, put them in a coal mine. Would make the girls push coal out in the day time, strip off, dance before those soldiers at night, naked. One of them lost their mind, the other one, forgot what happened; she died. This little boy made an escape, one day. Though some way got hid over in some stuff, got near the border, slipped out from under a load of stuff, and got over into the American zone.
– Branham, William. 1953[33]

Von Blomberg was considerably more than a revival promoter. During the early Cold War, he operated within international political, diplomatic, and anti-Communist networks, including the International Council for Christian Leadership,[34] associated with the network later known as The Fellowship or The Family and with the development of the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. Contemporary reports and later FBI records document his meetings with political leaders and his efforts to encourage international cooperation against Communism.[35] His activities became significant enough that the FBI examined whether his international work required registration as that of a foreign agent.[36]

When considering the political environment surrounding von Blomberg, his earlier history adds an unusual dimension. In 1934, after Adolf Hitler had consolidated power in Germany, von Blomberg was received by members of the German military and aristocratic establishment. He personally met Hitler and shook his hand. A day or two later, he traveled to Dachau, where the concentration camp had been operating since March 1933.[37] Von Blomberg was also aware of the regime’s treatment of Jews: he specifically noted that the Jewish secretary of his World Fellowship of Faiths had been barred from Germany. Nevertheless, he described his own reception and introduction to life in Germany in generally favorable terms.

I had feared that my liberal views as honorary secretary of the World Fellowship of Faiths might have set the general against me, particularly as the German secretary of our fellowship, a Jewess, had been barred from Germany. {…}

The next day, Baron von Pohl took me to see Hitler, with whom I shook hands.  A day or two later, I went to Dauchau, where I spent several days sampling German country life.  Such was my introduction to my new life.  That I shall like it and adapt myself to it I am quite sure, but my American citizenship still holds good and every year I shall look forward to the months I shall spend in the United States.
– Baron William Theobald Frary von Blomberg.[38]

Von Blomberg’s later involvement in Branham’s campaign organization illustrates how closely revivalism could intersect with international politics and anti-Communist networks during the early Cold War. At least some of the men surrounding the healing revival were not receiving their understanding of Communism, international conflict, and impending destruction solely from biblical interpretation. Some were interacting directly with political officials and organizations[39] engaged in the ideological struggle itself.[40] Those political fears could then return to revival audiences transformed by the language of prophecy, spiritual warfare, and divine revelation, turning an ideological struggle into participation in a supernatural conflict believed to determine the course of history itself.

Jim Jones would eventually reject much of the Christianity practiced by the ministers who helped launch his career. What is striking, however, is what he did not abandon.

The history of Peoples Temple therefore offers a warning more subtle than the familiar story of a charismatic leader making increasingly bizarre predictions. Many of the political concerns Jones discussed were real. Governments had lied. Racial injustice was real. Nuclear war was possible. Authoritarian governments did imprison and murder their opponents. The danger came when evidence of genuine problems became evidence of a prophetic system in which Jones claimed privileged knowledge of what those problems meant, where they were leading, and what his followers had to do to survive. Political opinion had become prophecy, and prophecy had become authority.

The theology changed. The political loyalties changed. Even Jones’ understanding of God changed. But the prophetic method survived.

Notes

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