What is Cultish? This!

It is an engagement with an entrance into the kingdom of the cults, the kingdom of the cults. We have dropped the first four premiere episodes and you're going to be hearing the first one today. It is about Jonestown, Jim Jones, Jonestown, Ground Zero.

It is difficult to listen to. We're going to be actually listening to some of the actual audio from the day of the suicide. Jim Jones was a Marxist, socialist, communist, atheist, actually. He's distanced himself from the Judeo-Christian worldview and created a commune in Guyana.

It is a powerful, powerful thing to hear some of this audio. And again, I warn you, it is difficult to listen to, but Cultish is a program from Apologia Studios that will aim to introduce you to the world of the kingdom of the cults, to unwrap them, to unpack them, to examine them from a theological, a sociological perspective.

The first four episodes, Jonestown, engaging Apollo Quiboloy, the Filipino son of God, the man today who says that he is the Messiah on earth today. We're going to talk about the Jesus of the cults. And of course, we also have our final episode is Escaping Scientology, where we talk to Andrea Schwartz, who was actually a part of Scientology, and she escaped with her and her husband when they became Christians.

And they were actually informed there was a contract out on their lives when they left. So we're very excited to introduce this program to you. It is all up at ApologiaStudios .com. You can go to that website, you can browse, and you can click through all of Apologia Studios content.

Cultish is right there. Click on that, go to the page. And right now, for your listening pleasure, all four first episodes are up right now. They will be across all major platforms, iTunes, all those things.

You're going to get them all. But right now, you can get them all at ApologiaStudios .com. I encourage you guys to go there, listen, enjoy the episodes. We hope that they are a blessing to you, that they help you to understand and engage this world, and partner with us to actually dismantle the kingdom of the cult.

So here is that first episode on Jonestown, Ground Zero.

For God's sakes, let's get on with it. We've lived. We've lived as no other people have lived and loved. We've had as much of this world as you're going to get. Let's just be done with it. Let's be done with the agony of it.

This is a revolutionary suicide. This is not a self-destructive suicide. So they're paying for this. They brought this upon us. I love you, and I want you out of it and with Christ. But you, you, you're...

How very much I've loved you. How very much I've tried my best to give you a good life. But in spite of all of that I've tried, a handful of our people with their lives have made our life impossible. There's no way to detach ourselves from what's happened today.

Not only we're in a compound situation, not only are there those who have left and committed the betrayal of the century. Some have stolen children from others and they're in pursuit right now to kill them because they sold their children.

And we are sitting here waiting on a powder keg. I don't think this is what we want to do with our babies. I don't think that's what we had in mind to do with our babies. It was said by the greatest of prophets from time immemorial, no man takes my life from me, I lay my life down.

So to sit here and wait for the catastrophe that's going to happen on that airplane, it's going to be a catastrophe. Almost happened here. Almost happened. The congressman was nearly killed here. But you can't steal people's children.

You can't take off with people's children without expecting a violent reaction. And that's not so unfamiliar to us either. Even if we were Judeo-Christian, if we weren't communist, well, the kingdom suffers violence and the violence will take it by force.

If we can't live in peace, then let's die in peace.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the premiere episode of Cultish. We are a production of Apologia Studios, and this is our premiere episode. My name is Jeremiah Roberts. I'm one of your hosts and I'm excited to have you guys aboard.

And with me is my good friend, pastor and co-host, and I've known him for over 20 years, Jeff Durbin. How are you, man?

Good, man. What's up, guys? Very excited about this flagship episode of Apologia Studios' new program, Cultish. We are going to enter into the kingdom of the cults, unpack the darkness, bring light, and ultimately, by God's grace, dismantle it.

That's the goal.

Yes, yes. And so I want to give you, everyone, just a little bit of context here of what you are listening to. This is a tape. It's actually referred, when the FBI recovered it, it's referred as Q42, is the title of this tape.

And it was the recording that took place nearly 40 years ago, November 18, 1978, in a little commune called Jonestown in Goyana, South America. And the context of what had happened is that Jim Jones was a lot of people, he's an iconic figure, and a lot of people don't know a whole lot about him.

And we've been able to do some fantastic research and want to kind of bring you guys in on that. So he was a charismatic leader who had started a quote unquote Christian ministry in Indiana and was very Pentecostal, charismatic based.

But ultimately, he really had this progressive sort of Marxist and socialist gospel that he would talk about that. In fact, we're going to talk about that more in later episodes. But what happens is that he transitioned, this is very interesting, he transitioned over to San Francisco.

And one of the reasons, too, is because he had a lot of paranoia of just apocalyptic visions, he thought that there was going to be a nuclear fallout in the Midwest. And so that's part, so he took his whole group, they moved to San Francisco, then there were allegations that took place of abuse of control, and a lot of typical tactics that you'll see in a lot of these destructive cults.

And upon those accusations that were brought about by certain journalists in San Francisco, he immediately departed to Goyana, South America, to Jonestown, which is a commune they are already in the process of building and putting up together.

Let me ask you about that real fast. Jim Jones has essentially become pejorative.

Yes.

It's a way to cut somebody down, you're like Jim Jones. But I just want to say quickly, in terms of people don't understand what he believed, you mentioned Marxist.

Right.

And commune, but yet he used Christian terminology and manipulated and twisted the word of God and was able to influence people as though he were some sort of Christian evangelist preacher, circuit preacher.

But the truth is his worldview was actually antithetical to the biblical worldview, and he actually ebbed and flowed from a profession of faith in Christianity to atheism and agnosticism. He wasn't actually a religious figure.

Yeah, and in fact, if you listen to that, I want to just kind of bring you guys into that context of what you just heard. So he's talking with his group, getting ready to commit what was the largest mass suicide in modern history, in fact, is the greatest loss of American lives in one particular place.

How many?

Believe it was 915.

And 300 of those were children.

300 plus were children under the ages of 12, 13 to 12. And some of them were all the way down to even being infants.

Yeah.

So what you'll hear, though, is that even he says, even if we weren't, if we were Judeo Christian or we're not, we're we're Marxist and socialist and communist.

Right.

But what's what's interesting to you is he's getting them ready. I want to talk to you guys real quick about the manipulation. He takes John 10, 18. He talks about is said by the greatest of prophets and time memorial.

No one takes my life from me. I lay it down. Everyone cheered from him. Then he takes another scripture, Matthew 11, 12, and he talks about the world, the worldly kingdom suffers violence and the violence is triggered by force.

So, I mean, as a pastor, you know, those have those have very, very different meanings.

Yes.

And the scriptures then taking getting ready to commit revolutionary suicide. I'm sure you'd say.

Absolutely. One of the critical things to keep in mind is that the twisting of scriptures, the perversion of the word of God by cult leaders and charlatans and con artists like Jim Jones and many other leaders like Joseph Smith, Jr. Of Mormonism, Charles Taze Russell and the Watchtower, David Koresh.

You can get the list is long and sorted, right?

Yes.

This is not a new thing in terms of twisting the scriptures, the word of God. I'll give you an example of that. This is from the Bible. This is long before Jim Jones came around. This is second Peter chapter three.

This is what the apostle Peter says in terms of twisting of the scriptures. He says, and count in verse 15 and count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters.

Here it is. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures. You therefore beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your stability.

Yes.

And so it's, it's critically important for us to recognize that these, these charlatans, these con artists and cult leaders use the Bible as a springboard, as a pretext to manipulate, to distort and to destroy people.

Right.

So for example, and you know, Jim Jones, uh, confessing that he's not coming from an ultimately Judeo-Christian background, yet he uses the Bible to draw people into this commune, into this, this movement.

And he takes the word of God in reference to Christ, laying his life down for the sheep.

Yes.

And he uses that somehow to say that suicide is, is the way laying our lives down, laying our lives down. Right.

And so his, his concept, his Marcus worldview, he had a view of what was called revolutionary suicide. And he had, he had actually had really planned and visualized carrying this out all the way back to when he started in Indiana.

So pretty much all of his minute, all of his quote unquote ministry and everything he did led him up to this very moment. So what led to this talk and this happening is that he was waiting for the right time.

And so essentially upon, there's further allegations in Jonestown, Guyana of people being, people being held against their will and just additional abuse. And people, it was, it was told as it was propagated as the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey.

If you go down to Jonestown, supposed to be the happiest place on earth.

Right.

But as soon as people got there, there was, it was slave labor. They were forced to get up at six o 'clock in the morning, have a very, a meal of just some like gravy and rice and such. Maybe three meals, three really terrible meals a day.

Most people lost around 40 to 30 to 40 pounds within just a couple of months of being at Jonestown. And after working, as soon as they were done around 6 PM, they were forced to go to the main commune.

And Jim Jones would just rant till probably around six o 'clock in the evening to probably one o 'clock in the morning. So people were just tired and they're just broken, systematically broken down.

And there's something interesting about this, Jeremiah, the, this was a pattern for Jim Jones that went all the way back to childhood, correct?

Yes.

He, from a child used to bring people into what was a barn and he would just sit and preach to children as a, as a very, very young man for extended periods of time. And he used to even manipulate them and, and, and give all kinds of promises and things like that.

If they, if they would show up, he would try to get them. He would even, he would even engage in things like feeding them and stuff like that to try.

To get them to come on. Giving them punch.

Giving them punch.

It's a documented fact. When I first heard that, I was chill. So what ended up happening is there was a congressman, Leo Ryan from San Francisco. He came down with some reporters from NBC to figure out what was going on to investigate.

Right.

Upon arriving at Jonestown, he tried, Jim Jones tried to make it look everything nice. He had everyone sort of rehearse his lines to say, Jonestown is the most wonderful place.

Right.

Fortunately, there was a defector, someone who wanted to leave, handed a cameraman a note that helped me get out of Jonestown. And that just sent a whole huge amount of events where they, uh, it just.

Well, he handed the, he slipped the note under his arm.

Yes, he slipped the note under his arm.

And the note fell. And there was a child that started yelling, he's passing a note. He's passing a note.

Yeah.

So they were all aware and warned ultimately by Jones, uh, not to speak out, not to say something obviously, because this little child said, he's passing a note. He's passing a note.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so what ended up happening is that the defect ended up, he sort of started a snowball effect where all of a sudden there were more defectors rose. Oh, he's getting out of here. This is my opportunity.

So I ended up being around 16 to 20 somewhat people that ended up leaving to try and get out of there. And so they went back to this airstrip that was several miles out from Jonestown. What ended up happening is that they got ambushed by, there's a people from Jones Jones's security force who ambushed them.

And, and you'll hear about that later on, but they were ambushed and that was a Congressman Leo Ryan was killed. Several reporters from NBC were killed. There's some people who survived it. It was actually the first Congressman, uh, in the United States to die, uh, on the line of duty.

Yes.

So all that being said, that whole segment kind of Jim Jones had been playing this mass suicide for years. So this whole, uh, line of events really set the tone. So what we're going to do, we're going to go ahead and jump into this.

Um, we're going to be showing you we've, so just so you know, we've done our best to edit out, to edit this, to try and give you guys the best, uh, points to understand where we're coming from regards to this.

So we've done our best to edit this, to get it out. I do want to warn you. What you're about to hear is it's disturbing.

Yeah.

Um, it's graphic.

Yeah.

Um, but it's something as Christians, we can't shy away from because these is you, the Bible talks about there's evil in men's hearts and Jesus said, Oh, the heart comes all different sorts of evil. And so we have to be able to confront this because the world looks at this and they try and make sense of it.

And even though it's disturbing and it's graphic, we have to jump into this.

So yeah.

Theology matters. It has a real impact in the world, whether that theology is atheistic theology in terms of a denial of God's existence or whether it's Christian theology or cultic theology, theology matters.

It has consequences, real consequences in the world. Again, whether that's an atheistic theology in terms of denial of God's existence, that actually leads to perspectives and worldviews that have real genuine impact in the world around us, on our communities.

Absolutely.

Mormonism, same thing. You have consequences like Mount Meadows massacre and on and on. Theology matters, but I want to reiterate what Jeremiah said there, everybody, what you're going to hear is very, very disturbing.

And so if you have children around, I want to encourage you to just be cautious about that in terms of thinking about how old they are and be willing to hear these things. And I'll just highlight something at the very beginning of the episode, when we have the cultish intro playing, those sound clips in the middle of that intro are from Jim Jones in this moment where they were drinking the Kool-Aid, where the people are dying.

So when you hear children crying in the background, they're crying out of pain. They're in severe pain because they're dying. So when you hear that in the background, this is a really very serious situation.

It's very sad, of course, but just be aware of that. What we're going to play is very disturbing.

So my opinion is that we be kind to children and be kind to seniors and take the portion like they used to take in ancient Greece and step over quietly because we are not committing suicide. It's a revolutionary act.

So as you see, this is what he had led everyone up to. Now, this moment, what ends up happening is that his whole, all of his followers are almost completely loyalists. There were others who thought this was just a drill because up until this moment, Jones had really conditioned these people into being completely dependent on him.

He had done mock drills to have them take a drink because they were, quote unquote, being attacked. But those ended up being false alarms. So some people thought this is just another drill. Other people really believed it.

But not everyone here died, just so you know, voluntarily. He talked about there's people outside who are going to come and take us and kill us. However, all of Jones's troops and all of his security, they were armed with guns.

They were not aimed outwards. They had surrounded the entire commune aimed inward, both with guns and with crossbows.

And when the teams came after the murder of all these people, when they came, they saw the vats, of course, of the Kool-Aid and the cyanide. But they also found a number of syringes as well, filled with cyanide.

And the speculation is, of course, that Jones actually had people who were not going along with this actually tagged with those syringes.

Yeah, primarily the syringes were used on the children.

Yes.

Because a lot of them were not willing to drink it. The children, for some reason, had the ability to think for themselves from what witnesses say. Me, it's hard to even just, as we're having this discussion, it's hard to even fathom that.

But yeah, I mean, that's what happens. So the next statement which you're going to hear is that Jones gave an opportunity to say, if there's anyone who has a dissenting opinion, go ahead and here's your chance to.

Speak.

No one spoke out of the 900 plus people except for this 60-year-old lady named Christine. And I think just listening to her, I mean, she, in spite of all the conditioning, all the systematic breaking down, she was incredibly brave in this moment to stand up.

And there's almost 20 minutes that are edited out, but she's trying to reason with Jim Jones to appeal, to say, no, there's a better way than to kill herself. She doesn't want it to happen. But no one else is following along except for her.

So go ahead and clip three, clip three.

People's lives in my hands, and I certainly don't want your life in my hand. But I'm going to tell you, Christine, without me, life has no meaning. I'm the best friend you'll ever have.

I said I'm afraid to die.

I don't think you are. I don't think you are.

But I look at our babies, and I think they deserve to live.

I agree.

You know?

But also they deserve what's more, they deserve peace.

So it's interesting. One of the oppressive and complicated issues with every cult is that all of the thought, life, everything, all the principles really rest in that leader, that person, right? This person who's leading me.

And so when you look at any cult that's across the scene, whether it's, again, the cult of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the Watchtower, or Jim Jones, the leader becomes the reference point, right?

He's the reference point. And so I'm the most important person. You're not going to have a better friend than me. Life has no meaning apart from me.

And in fact, when you do a study of the attributes of God, you'll find out that the commonality a lot of these cult leaders have is they take on the very characteristics of God that you see in Scripture.

So Jesus, for example, said, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. However, when you take what is supposed to be laid upon Jesus and try and put that in the hands of someone else who claims to be what only Jesus has, then you end up with a very, very cruel taskmaster who is going to take you to task.

Well, and that goes across the board, though. This is really important in terms of thinking about this as Christians. This is our ballgame, our ball field. We play by our rules, right? The Word of God is the standard here.

So it's important to note that when you look at these different religions and these cults that say twist and pervert the biblical worldview, this counterfeit Christian cults like, say, Jim Jones, in a sense, he even denies ultimately being a Christian himself, but he uses the Word of God and biblical language to draw people into it.

You have the Bible over here and they'll say, yeah, I believe that book. But really, it's their secondary standard over here or the cult leader themselves that becomes the real standard that eats up the standard of the Bible.

So when you look at Mormonism, for example, you have the Bible and the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctrine and Covenants, History of the Church, Journal of Discourses. They'll say we believe the Bible, but actually their secondary standard over here is what is the real standard.

That's the principium. That's the source of knowledge. And for Jim Jones, he would give a passing remark of this verse or that verse. But in essence, he says, I'm the standard.

His ultimate appeal, his ultimate authority was because I said so.

Yes.

Me, I'm the authority.

That's ultimately what it is. So we're going to go ahead and jump into the next part of this conversation that Christine is having with Jim Jones at this moment. It's going to be what ends up happening.

And this is important to see because this is a commonality in Marxist ideology. It's also a commonality in cultism and different cults is that a lot of times cults will take your real authentic self and your authentic identity, and they'll replace that with a cult identity that is part of the group.

And your whole goal is you have to conform and fit in. And in most of these organizations, saying no is flat out against the rules. It's just what it is. And you're systematically broken down. And any time someone steps out and tries to question, that's when the authority gets put into place.

So you guys are going to hear that from this next segment with Christine talking with Jim Jones and another member of the People's Temple in this very disturbing video clip.

It's over, sister. It's over. We've made that day. We made a beautiful day. And let's make it a beautiful day. Christine, you're only standing here because he was here in the first place. So I don't know what you're talking about having an individual life.

Your life has been extended to the day that you're standing there because of him.

Their identity is wrapped up in the leader in the cultic group. Jeremiah, can you talk about this for a second? Contrast that with the biblical worldview of the Christian church in terms of questioning and challenging somebody's authority.

Does a pastor or elders of a church have ultimate authority like this? To contrast that in terms of the Christian worldview, a church member, a Christian contradicting the leader or questioning their standard.

Right.

So this is what's interesting is that, like I said, the Jim Jones and David Koresh sometimes, those are impact words because people hear those really maniacal cult leaders and they all of a sudden have this fear mentality.

You're not supposed to question them. People can call anyone. You've been called Jim Jones.

By Arrow when we did. Vice.

He tried to say that just to kind of incite fear in people. But I'm just like, what do you even mean by that? I need to figure this out and break it down. But what's interesting is that, especially whenever you have a sermon, for example, you always say that if don't take what I say, for example, test what I say by the word of God.

So the biblical worldview is that it's our primary authority is the Bible. That's what that's God's revelation that he's given to us. Now, he has appointed us elders. That's part of the infrastructure of the church.

Now, however, they are not the final authority. Jesus is the one who is leading the church. He is the one who sit at the right hand of the father. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. He is the one in whom all the treasures, the wisdom and knowledge lie in.

So ultimately, the authority is in Christ. And so as a pastor, you have a responsibility to communicate God's truth. But in no way, even though this is what God has called you to do, my life is not extended to the day you have given me.

That's the only way I can describe it. It's different, though.

And pastor's words are tested by scripture, right? He can be your pastor must be. It must be. You must be able to refuse and contradict your pastor when he contradicts or subverts the word of God.

Yep. Yeah.

One thing I just want to mention, too, is that a lot of you are listening here who may not be. You may not be Christians. You may believe something completely different from this. And you're interested in cults.

Or I think some of you may have even come from a background where you left a destructive group and you're trying to make sense of how do I put my life together? And I know a lot of people who end up, whether Jehovah's Witnesses, or they're part of a group like this, or Scientologists, majority of them end up becoming atheists.

Or even if they do become Christian, profess Christ, they want nothing to do with the church because they see the idea of you having leaders or pastors and authority. And all of a sudden, they kind of make this understandable, but not unhealthy comparison with someone who is an authoritarian figure versus someone who is a pastor.

Like I said, I'm under the authority of church eldership. That's the way we should be. But it's a different infrastructure.

Yeah.

And there was a premier doctrine that was shouted out of the Reformation. It's all the way back in the earliest church, of course, and in the pages of the Bible. But there was a doctrine actually that was heralded during the time of the Reformation, right?

And that doctrine was sola scriptura. And that doctrine emphasizes the fact that God himself is the reference point and the standard and the ultimate authority. And that every single human being, every image bearer of God is under God's authority, which means that even when you have a situation like God has created an authority in the church in terms of under shepherds, those under shepherds are under shepherds.

Right.

They're under the main shepherd and his words are the final appeal, which means that you have an obligation, according to the Christian worldview, to reject unbiblical authority and to take them to task when they actually contradict the words of God.

So you made a good point there. We may have people listening to this that are just coming out of cults, or they're in a cult or they're an atheist and they want to learn about cults. We want to be a help to you and a blessing to you overall.

But ultimately, we'd also like to point you to the fact that the biblical worldview has the answer as to why all of this is wrong in the first place. But the biblical worldview also has a foundation by which you can also escape the clutches of these cult leaders because you reject their authority because you stand on an outside authority that we all have to appeal to.

Yeah, we'll go into this in later episodes. We're going to jump into the next clip in just a second. But one of the things you realize is that every cult always appeals to an internal authority or a private revelation.

They have some experience or ultimately they just come to the conclusion that I am the authority and ultimately because I said so. But the Christian worldview gives you this ability to have this external authority that was a public revelation.

It was, you know, they're not secret, right?

Secret.

It was confirmed by multiple witnesses. It was a reliable collection of historical documents that witnesses these these things that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecy. And so all of those things, when you study the origins of the New Testament, you can find out these are private revelations.

They said, oh, this happened over here.

Yeah.

On, you know, you could say on 5th and main. It happened over there. If you have questions about it. I've got ten. There's one of my witnesses over here. I witnesses. And so that being said, so what we're going to do is that.

So the next segment is that, again, you see at this point, Jim Jones is just with his manipulation and just. I know how to say the guy had just an evil man that he was just an evil man. And I can only make sense of this being, you know, having a biblical worldview because it talks about the nature that's in man.

But at this point, you start to see a lot of his other followers. Talk, Christine, again, was the only one who spoke out against Jones. So you'll hear an unidentified man here talk. And then Jim Jones kind of goes.

And after this man talks, you'll kind of see people get riled up to do this revolutionary suicide. And then you will. Then Jim Jones is going to say a couple of things to get the crowd going. And we're going to break that down.

If you tell us we have to give our lives now, we're ready. I'm pretty sure all the rest of the brothers are with me.

For months, I've tried to keep this thing from happening. But I now see it's the will. It's the will of sovereign being that this happened to us. That we lay down our lives in protest against what's being done.

So we lay down our lives to protest in what's being done. The criminality of people, the cruelty of people. Who walked out of here today? Did you notice who walked out? Mostly white people. Mostly white people walked.

I'm so grateful for the ones that didn't. Those who knew who they are. But there's no point. There's no point to this. We are born before our time. They won't accept us. And I don't think we should sit here and take any more time for our children to be endangered.

Because if they come after our children and we give them our children, then our children will suffer forever.

So yeah, you can... So just so you know, I mean, you hear someone like that saying we're all ready to go. Just completely overwhelmed with emotion. I want to try and explain this to you is that you are probably horrified, like I was the first time I heard that.

But you're viewing that through a lens of rationality. And you probably have six to eight hours of sleep. You know, probably last night, hopefully. I mean, unless you got like newborn kids or you're a mom sometimes.

But the point is that these people over months, you start off with viewing that this guy was a messenger from God. And then you're systematically broken down and isolated and conditioned to be completely dependent on this person.

So of course, this is the process of months being broken down. And that's when people don't... A lot of people don't understand the level of suggestibility and the susceptibility that people have in regards to that.

So that's just something you need to take into account when you hear someone like this or these cult members that are completely indoctrinated and essentially just worshipers of Jim Jones. We're worshipers of him.

It's a part of the sociological manipulation of the cults. It's common within the cult, sociological manipulation. And that is that they find their identity first and foremost in the group. The identity is in the group.

You have issues where there's love bombing, right? And so there's a constant sort of frenzy of love and love and love. And if you start to question the authority figure, the Jim Jones, or if you start to find your identity outside the group, that's where the group starts to pull away from you.

And they start to say, now your identity is no longer in the group. You're not with us. You're not with us.