Last night I turned on CNN as I often do when nothing else is on TV, to watch Soledad O’Brien’s special on Escape from Jonestown.    Thirty years ago, out of the 1,000 members of that religious cult, only 33 lived to tell the painful story of what had happened. 
It’s amazing how one man, Jim Jones,  with his charm, zeal and fury of a maniacal dictator, and Pentecostal preaching style,  could have exhorted and  retained in his followers,  although many of them children,  for so long.  As he would speak, they would applaud, cheer and shout.   He would enrapture his crowds with faith healings, laying his hands on them and they would miraculously be cured of any ailments.   Probably his most powerful asset was his ability to determine what listeners wanted to hear and give it to them in simple language and appealing to them on an instinctual level. 
Many of his followers were elderly African- Americans, although he indoctrinated many young, idealistic white people with his themes of socialism, equality and political activism.
His passionate deliveries of his sermons however, became one of fury and incredible rage after relocating from California to Jonestown in Guyana in 1977, and created a fear in his followers that “cemented” them.  He also created amongst his followers a “divide and conquer”.  He further  poisoned the  atmosphere among them by encouraging physical fights to solve problems.  By the end Jones was feeding his followers a steady diet of fatalism.  They were willing to follow him right into death.  And that is where they ended their lives-death by cyanide poisoning.
Is this a form of Christotainment??  If it is, I’d rather have the selling of a plastic Moses or a Precious Moments figurine or a theme park based on the Holy Land.