9. Peoples Temple
When Jim Jones founded The Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ in 1955, many people viewed it as an egalitarian project through which people could truly live out the message of the gospel by living in the community and sharing everything they had. However, Jim Jones was actually a dedicated Marxist and founded his church as a means of infiltrating Christianity with communism. The church grew quickly under the premise that its members were social justice activists; even the members themselves had no idea that they were part of a much more sinister agenda.
In 1974, Jim Jones leased land in Guyana for a project that he termed “Jonestown.” The commune was to be a completely self-contained socialist community in which the members grew their own food and met their needs. It evolved over the next few years as members of the church moved to South America to continue living out their social justice dreams. However, Jones’ drug-induced mania led him to turn from the charming pastor that they had loved into a ruthless dictator. In November 1978, he and the leaders of Peoples Temple forced everyone at Jonestown to drink Kool-Aid that had been laced with cyanide. 918 people, including 276 children, died.