Peoples Temple

===Indiana formation===
[[File:Jimjonesfirstchurch.jpg|thumb|Jim Jones's first church in Indianapolis, Indiana|upright=1]]
Before he founded his church, [[Jim Jones]] had become enamored with [[communism]] and he was also frustrated by the harassment which communists were being subjected to in the U.S. during the [[Red Scare]].<ref name="q134">Jones, Jim. [http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27339 "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 134."] ''Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple''. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.</ref> This, among other things, provided a clerical inspiration for Jones; as he himself described it in a biographical recording:<ref name="q134" /><ref name="violent" />
{{blockquote|I decided, how can I demonstrate my [[Marxism]]? The thought was, infiltrate the church. So I consciously made a decision to look into that prospect.}}

Although Jones feared that he would end up being the victim of a backlash for being a communist, he was surprised when a [[Methodist]] superintendent (whom he had not met through the [[American Communist Party]]) helped him enter the church, despite his knowledge that Jones was a communist.<ref name="horrock">Horrock, Nicholas M., "Communist in 1950s", ''The New York Times'', December 17, 1978</ref> In 1952, Jones became a student pastor in Sommerset Southside Methodist Church in [[Indianapolis]], [[Indiana]], but left that church because it barred him from [[Racial integration|integrating]] [[African-Americans]] into his congregation.<ref name="violent" /> In 1954, Jones founded his own church in a rented space in Indianapolis, at first, he named it the Community Unity Church.<ref name="violent" />

Jones had previously observed a [[faith healing]] service at the [[Seventh Day Baptist]] Church, which led him to conclude that such healings could attract people, and generate income, which he could use to accomplish his social goals.<ref name="violent">Wessinger, Catherine. ''How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven's Gate''. Seven Bridges Press, 2000. {{ISBN|978-1889119243}}.</ref> Jones and the Temple's members knowingly faked healings because they found that the healings increased people's faith and generated financial resources which they could use to help the poor and finance the church.<ref name="violent" /> These "healings" involved the use of chicken livers and other animal tissue, which Jones (and confederate Temple members) claimed were [[cancer]]ous tissues which had been removed from the bodies of the people who had been healed.<ref>Layton 1999, pp. 65–66.</ref>

In 1955, Jones bought his first church building, located in a racially mixed Indianapolis neighborhood. He first named his church Wings of Deliverance,<ref name="raven49">Reiterman 1982. pp. 49–52.</ref> and later that year, he renamed it the '''Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church''', the first time he used the phrase "Peoples Temple".<ref name="violent" /> Jones's healings and purported [[clairvoyant]] revelations attracted [[Spiritualism (movement)|spiritualist]]s.<ref name="raven49" />