Jones became a student pastor for Somerset Methodist Church in 1952. On the side, he would visit and invite people from predominately black churches to attend his services. His message of integration and equality was an odd quality for a white preacher in the '50s. Eventually he'd built up a large enough following that he split off into a new independent church, the “People’s Temple.” Shortly afterward he became an ordained minister under the Disciples of Christ (DoC).
He was always part of the radical fringe of liberal Christianity up to that point.
At the time, Disciples of Christ claimed one and a half million members. Hardly a "fringe".
Two years after his ordination he wrote a book entitled The Letter Killeth
The title was "The Letter Killeth, but the Spirit Giveth LIFE".
which rejected the inerrancy of the Bible,
It pointed out the inconsistencies, errors, indecencies in the Bible, particularly the KJV.
All well known and acknowledged by Christians today, except for literal fundamatists.
calling it "myths",
the word 'myth' (your quote) is not found in the "The Letter Killeth, but the Spirit Giveth LIFE".
declared that Jesus was not God and not the Messiah,
Nope.
... not even those who had lived and worked with him for four years recognized the very same Jesus when he appeared in a different likeness on the road as His followers departed from the tomb. Imagine! they thought they had been speaking with a gardener.7 Can you not see the mystery? God never appears the same way twice.
He was disfellowshipped from the Disciples of Christ.
Nope. The DoC has a congregational "bottom-up" hierarchy. There's no central authority to 'dis-fellowship' a member church. It was expected that Jones' church would be voted out of the organization at the next General Assembly, but that hadn't happen before the events in Guyana.
Hitler's public acts of promoting the anti-Christian work of Alfred Rosenberg as the Reich's official philosophy,
Privately, Hitler was close to Rosenberg's views, but in public, he had to distance himself to curry favor with the Catholic and Protestant churches.
his requirement that all members of his SS engage in specifically pagan rituals
That was neo-pagan Himmler.
and his appointment of an openly anti-Christian pagan as head minister of the State Church
Nope. Ludwig Müller was little known Lutheran minister until the NSDAP "helped" him get elected to the position of Reich Bishop of the Deutsche Christen (DC) in 1933.
- a man who publicly suggested that the Bible on the pulpit of each state church be officially replaced with a copy of Mein Kampf
Nope. That was Rosenberg and atheist Martin Bormann.
- all this is proof to me of Hitler's actual religious convictions and it was obvious to millions of German Christians as well.
Indeed.
At the time, Disciples of Christ claimed one and a half million members. Hardly a "fringe".
I wasn't claiming that DoC was a fringe, but that Jones and his congregation were a fringe group.
It pointed out the inconsistencies, errors, indecencies in the Bible, particularly the KJV.
The Bible doesn't contain any errors, inconsistencies or indecencies. I rather like the KJV translation but it has its flaws.
All well known and acknowledged by Christians today, except for literal fundamatists.
While the claims of Biblical error, inconsistency and indecency are well-known to me, I don't acknowledge such claims as being particularly well-founded. And I am not a fundamentalist.
the word 'myth' (your quote) is not found
Correct. he does not use the word "myth."
He uses other degrading epithets to claim that the Bible is false, but he does not specifically include the word "myth" among those epithets.
Nope.
Again, you are technically correct that he did not explicitly say that Jesus was not God and that he was not the Messiah. What he did instead was to claim to be a prophet himself and arrogate to himself the authority to stand in judgment over Scripture (an authority Jesus never claimed). What he did instead was to describe Jesus as a "savior-teacher" and carefully avoid referring to him as God incarnate, to refer to Jesus as "reincarnatable as a child's smile" and said that Jesus "left the body in the Sonship degree" - which is an Arian, not a Christian notion.
There's no central authority to 'dis-fellowship' a member church.
At the general Assemblies, the congregations of the DoC at that time decided whether or not they would remain in fellowship with other congregations. It was a foregone conclusion that the Peoples Temple would be officially disfellowshipped, as the other congregations of the DoC had already made crystal clear that they did not consider the Peoples Temple to be a legitimate congregation, but a cult.
When all the other congregations of a denomination want nothing to do with you, you are disfellowshipped.
Privately, Hitler was close to Rosenberg's views, but in public, he had to distance himself
He was cagey, but he did not hesitate to promote Rosenberg's writings.
That was neo-pagan Himmler.
I sincerely doubt Himmler could have done anything without the leader's blessing.
Nope. Ludwig Müller was little known Lutheran minister
I was unclear. I consider Mueller (a Marcionist, not a neo-pagan) to have been just a puppet installed by Rosenberg, whom I consider to be the chief architect and leader (head minister in a political sense, not head bishop in an ecclesiastical sense) of state-controlled religious institutions in the Reich.
Nope. That was Rosenberg and atheist Martin Bormann.
Again, I consider Rosenberg to have been head minister of religion in the Reich, and those proposals come from his 30 point plan that he used to design the National Church.