The 1932 conviction of Father Divine for disturbing the peace and the death of Lewis J. Smith, the judge who sentenced him, four days later, brought the Peace Mission leader to the world\u2019s attention, searing him and his often-outlandish claims into the public awareness, much as the assassination of Congressman Leo Ryan and the mass deaths in Jonestown would do for Jim Jones and Peoples Temple 46 years later.[i]<\/a><\/p>\n Thus the Peace Mission and Peoples Temple were introduced to the larger world, not as churches but as small, marginal, bizarre, and volatile political cults led by men claiming to have the means to cause retributive deaths on their enemies, even if the enemy was a seemingly-untouchable symbol of US power, like a sitting judge or congressperson.<\/p>\n The metaphysical class of Father Jehovia, the Peace Mission Movement of Father Divine, and Jim Jones\u2019 Peoples Temple were three separate manifestations of the same Cause working for social justice in the US. The signature moments of the latter two had one significant difference, however: Father Divine\u2019s claimed role in the death of Judge Lewis represented the opening political statement of his movement. With many more to come; Jonestown\u2019s tragic end \u2013 and the statements of Jim Jones on the so-classed Death Tape \u2013 represented its final political statement,[ii]<\/a> and the positions which Jones had taken throughout his life would be examined only in retrospect, and with the knowledge of the deaths tainting every popular analysis.<\/p>\n In these two confrontations, however, the state was symbolized by the power of its representative \u2013 a judge and a congressman \u2013 while the people were symbolized by the inter-racial, egalitarian organizations standing up for them all. For the faithful of each cult leader, their confrontation with the state was seen as a classic David- versus-Goliath battle.[iii]<\/a> The confrontation between aggressive and intrusive state power on one hand, and the oppressed and principled people on the other, features a decisive blow delivered by the underdog and a historical victory, through retribution, for the people over the evil state.<\/p>\n In this analysis, the overall movement\u2019s political expression begins with Father Divine and ends with Jim Jones, the alpha and the omega of the cause of justice, righteousness and truth.<\/p>\n Endnotes<\/strong><\/p>\n [i]<\/a> Although the Reverend Major Jealous Devine and his little house church may have been known locally to a few in the New York communities of Sayville and Harlem, and in a few wide spread esoteric New Thought circles, he was not known to the rest of the world before his Alpha moment in 1932 for his conviction for disturbing the peace and the death of Judge Lewis Smith a few days later.<\/p>\n Likewise, while Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple was remembered in Indianapolis, Indiana, and well-known in Redwood Valley, San Francisco and Los Angeles, California, it was Jim Jones\u2019 Omega event \u2013 the horror of Jonestown \u2013 which introduced him and his movement to a much larger world audience.<\/p>\n The histories of the two movement included subsequent deaths of other, related individuals that some tied to the notion of the proof of the retributive powers claimed by their respective leaders.<\/p>\n For Father Divine, the other defining death was of Mrs. Annie Hallick, a White woman and close neighbor of the Divine commune in Sayville, whom the Divine followers accused of being the main agitator \u201cwho incited other residents\u201d against the cult, leading to Father Divine\u2019s arrest. \u201cFour days less than a year\u201d after Father\u2019s trial \u2013 and his first demonstration of retributive power a few days later \u2013 Mrs. Hallick \u201cmerely fell from her bed, breaking her leg\u201d and died. It is not clear whether this was a murder or an accident, but for the believers in Divine it was \u201cretribution taking its toll.\u201d See Retribution That Followed Wake of Persecution in Sayville<\/a>.<\/p>\n For Jim Jones, it was the deaths in 1980 of two leading apostates, Al and Jeannie Mills, which cast suspicions upon the vestiges of his movement. During their Temple years (1969-1975), the husband and wife \u2013 then known as Elmer and Deanna Mertle \u2013 were members of the Temple\u2019s powerful Planning Commission; she headed the Temple\u2019s publications office, while he had served as its official photographer.<\/p>\n The Mertles defected from Peoples Temple in 1975 and changed their names. Jeannie Mills authored a book, Six Years with God<\/i><\/a>, which described the excesses and misdeeds of the Temple and its leader. The two of them founded the Human Freedom Center, a dissident group that formed the template for the Concerned Relatives organization. It was at the instigation of both groups that led Congressman Ryan to go to Guyana in 1978.<\/p>\n Al and Jeannie Mills, as well as their daughter Daphene, were murdered in their Berkeley home in 1980. The murders remain unsolved. See \u201cJeannie Mills<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n