“Jim Jones wanted his people to believe the establishment was trying to kill him because whites were threatened by his message of racial equality. He used the incident to close ranks and turn anyone who disagreed with him into a menace. He warned his congregation that a would be assassin might try to infiltrate their church, so they had to prove their loyalty to him by never questioning his orders. Dissenters became traitors.”
![“No one listening [to Jones' sermons], even those who were the most devoted to him, could take it all in. But at some point each follower heard something that reaffirmed his or her personal reason for belonging to Peoples Temple, and for believing in Jim Jones. As Jonestown historian Fielding…” quote by Jeff Guinn](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/a6b/jeff-guinn-21483_jonestown_no-one-listening-to-jones-sermons-even-t_2184419.jpg)
