Recruited: Middle class progressives, civil rights activists
Peak following: 5,000+
Death toll: 918
Creepy fact: Some of Jones’ followers, including children, were forced to confess to made-up crimes and were beaten.
Reverend Jim Jones started his own congregation known as the Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ. He proclaimed to have a vision of a nuclear attack and when it would occur, causing him to move his church from Indianapolis to San Francisco. There, Jones’ ideologies of social activism were welcomed. His church became popular, attracting people of all kinds, evening gaining the support of politicians like George Moscone, Harvey Milk and Jerry Brown.
Mini-block sets depict many religious themes, so why not Mormonism, too?
Robert Kirby
| Feb. 7, 2021, 1:00 p.m.
It’s hardly surprising that there is a religious market for toys. What better way to reinforce the message of a certain faith than by incorporating it into the world of children?
I’m talking about the religious themes in many Lego sets, the tiny snap-together plastic bricks that are the bane of every barefoot person trying to find the bathroom in the dark.
But, like most toys originally intended for youngsters, Legos have a large adult market as well.
Note: I don’t mean porn. There are porn Legos, but no way am I going into that here.
| Updated: Jan. 1, 2021, 9:13 p.m.
Nearing his 90th birthday, Richard Lyman Bushman is the godfather, or, should we say, the patriarch of Mormon history.
As an emeritus history professor at Columbia University, with a chair of Mormon studies named in his honor at the University of Virginia, and the author of “Rough Stone Rolling,” the much-heralded biography of church founder Joseph Smith, Bushman is revered as a gentle, thoughtful scholar, who explores the past and present of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with an evenhanded but deft touch.
He is married to the inimitable Claudia Lauper Bushman, also an American historian, scholar, and writer who helped found Exponent II, a feminist magazine for Latter-day Saint women. The couple have six children.