TheJesus movement was anevangelical Protestant movement that began on theWest Coast of the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s and primarily spread throughout North America, Europe, Central America, Australia and New Zealand, before it subsided in the late 1980s. Members of the movement were calledJesus people orJesus freaks.
Its predecessor, thecharismatic movement, had already been in full swing for about a decade. It involvedmainline Protestants andCatholics who testified to having supernatural experiences similar to those recorded in theActs of the Apostles, especiallyspeaking in tongues. The two movements similarly believed that they were calling the church back to a more biblically accurate version of Christianity. Furthermore, they believed that these changes would result in the restoration ofspiritual gifts to the church.[1]
The Jesus movement left a legacy that included the formation of variousdenominations, church groups, and other Christian organizations, and it also influenced the development of both the contemporaryChristian right andChristian left. It was foundational in several ongoing Christian cultural movements, includingJesus music's impact oncontemporary Christian music, and the development ofChristian media as aradio andfilm industry.[2][3]
The termsJesus movement andJesus people were popularized byDuane Pederson in his writings for theHollywood Free Paper. In an interview with Sean Dietrich which took place on August 19, 2006, Pederson explained that he did not coin the phrase "Jesus People"; moreover, he credited a magazine/television interviewer who asked him if he was part of the "Jesus People". As a result, Pederson was credited to be the phrase's founder.[4]
The term Jesus People is used to describe the group composed of outcast and anti-religious individuals who, during the 1960s and 1970s, turned towards the Christian faith and Jesus. They converted to Christianity and subsequently changed their lives to reflect the scripture and teachings of Jesus.[5]
During the 1970s, many younger generations were pulled away from the average structured lifestyle they were told to live, and instead turned to lifestyles that were referred to as counterculture. This new lifestyle consisted of exploring various drugs, paths of spirituality and religions. Despite the growing popularity of the counterculture, many young adults became confused, which led them to turn towards the church. People who identified as hippies came forward sharing their testimonies and the peace they found after turning towards the Jesus lifestyle.[6]
Secular and Christian media exposure in 1971 and 1972 caused the Jesus movement to explode across the United States, which attracted evangelical youth eager to identify with the movement. While many other communes and fellowships sprang up, theShiloh andChildren of God communities attracted more new believers.
Explo '72 was an event organized by theCampus Crusade for Christ which was held at theCotton Bowl Stadium inDallas, and involved such conservative leaders asBill Bright andBilly Graham. Many of the 80,000 young Jesus People attending Explo '72 discovered for the first time these and other traditional avenues of Christian worship and experience. Although Explo '72 marked the high-water mark of media interest, the Jesus movement continued at a grass roots level with smaller individual groups and communities.
The movement began to subside, largely concluding by the late 1980s,[7] but left a major influence in Christian music, youth and church life.[8]
Although the Jesus movement lasted no more than a decade (except for theJesus People USA which continues to exist in Chicago), its influence onChristian culture can still be seen. Thousands of converts moved into leadership positions in churches andparachurch organizations. The informality of the Jesus movement's music and worship affected almost all evangelical churches.[9] Some of the fastest-growing U.S. denominations of the late 20th century, such asCalvary Chapel,[10] Hope Chapel Churches, Victory Outreach,Vineyard Churches, andSovereign Grace Churches, trace their roots directly back to the Jesus movement, as do parachurch organizations likeJews for Jesus and thecontemporary Christian music industry.[9] Perhaps the most significant and lasting influence, however, was the growth of an emerging strand within evangelical Christianity that appealed to the contemporary youth culture.[11][12][13]
The culture of youth began to change far before the Jesus Movement of the '60's/'70s. Billy Graham, one of the leading evangelists of this time, started to see changes in youth during the late 1940s. Through the 1960s, college campuses all across the country were beginning to add campus ministries. Some of the organizations for this wereCampus Crusade for Christ,Fellowship of Christian Athletes, andInterVarsity Christian Fellowship.[14]
Jesus music, which grew out of the movement, was very influential in the creation of various subgenres of contemporary Christian music during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, such asJesus Culture andHillsong in both America and the UK.[15] This also led to the inclusion of new musical instruments in churches all over the world, such as guitars and drums, in addition to traditional musical instruments such as pianos and organs. Music in other parts of the world was also greatly influenced by the Jesus Movement, such as music in Central America. In Central America,Pentecostal churches under the charismatic movement began to compose spiritual music calledcoros (fast-paced hymns) which is normally accompanied by dancing as worship.[16]
The topic was the subject of the 2023 filmJesus Revolution.
The Jesus movement wasrestorationist in theology, seeking to return to the original life of theearly Christians. As a result, Jesus people viewedchurches, especially those in the United States, asapostate, and took a decidedlycountercultural political stance in general. The theology of the Jesus movement also called for a return tosimple living andasceticism in some cases. The Jesus people had a strong belief inmiracles,signs and wonders,faith,healing, prayer, theBible, and powerful works of theHoly Spirit. For example, a revival atAsbury College in 1970 grabbed the attention of the mainstream news media and became known nationwide.[17][18]
The movement tended towardsevangelism andmillennialism. Charismatic manifestations of thegifts of the Holy Spirit were not uncommon. Some of the books read by those within the movement includedRon Sider'sRich Christians in an Age of Hunger andHal Lindsey'sThe Late Great Planet Earth.[19] The Bible was the most read book by far, and provided the foundational truth for the movement.
The Jesus movement also had a communal aspect. The commune ofGraham Pulkingham was described in his bookThey Left Their Nets.
The expansion of the Jesus Movement among young people was encouraged and spread through the practice of baptisms; moreover, the West Coast was a popular location for these "mass baptisms". Another popular practice within the movement was evangelism, which is the act of spreading the Gospel; furthermore, because of active evangelism, thousands of young students in southern states converted and began living Jesus-focused lives.[6]
There has been a long legacy of Christian music being connected to the Jesus movement. Jesus music, referred to as gospel beat music in the UK, primarily began when street musicians of the late 1960s and early 1970s converted to Christianity.[20] They kept playing the same style of music they had played before, but they began to write lyrics containing a Christian message. Many music groups started out of this, and some became leaders within the Jesus movement, most notablyBarry McGuire,Love Song,Second Chapter of Acts,All Saved Freak Band,Servant,Petra,Resurrection Band,Phil Keaggy,Paul Clark,Dion DiMucci,Paul Stookey[21] ofPeter, Paul, and Mary;Randy Stonehill,Randy Matthews,Andraé Crouch (and the Disciples),Nancy Honeytree,Keith Green, andLarry Norman. The Joyful Noise Band traveled with a Christian community throughout the US and Europe, and they performed in festivals that were held underneath giant tents. In the UK,Malcolm and Alwyn were the most notable agents of the gospel beat.[9]
The Jesus People: Old-Time Religion in the Age of Aquarius by Enroth, Ericson, and Peters stated thatChuck Smith of Calvary Chapel inCosta Mesa, California founded the firstChristian rock labels when he launched theMaranatha! Music label in 1971 as an outlet for the Jesus music bands performing at Calvary worship services.[10] However, in 1970 Larry Norman recorded, produced, and released two albums:Street Level[22] andBorn Twice for Randy Stonehill.[23] on his own label, One Way Records.[24][better source needed]
Don Finto became involved with the Belmont Avenue Church of Christ (now simply Belmont Church), an ailing old inner city church inNashville, Tennessee,[25] YUS onMusic Row between the public housing and several universities: Peabody,Vanderbilt andBelmont College etc. By the summer of 1971, the membership roll had dropped to about 75 elderly members. The church had mainstream roots in the a cappellaChurches of Christ, but was transformed and firmly placed in the Jesus movement by an influx of countercultural Christians. Seating ran out, with people sitting on the windowsills or on the stage. It was not rare to find them walking the worst parts[clarification needed] of Lower Broadway witnessing toprostitutes and addicts. The concerts that were held at the Koinonia Coffee House on weekends helped east coastChristian music to grow in popularity.[26] The house band was called Dogwood, and various musicians regularly appeared on stage, such as Dogwood,Amy Grant,[25]Brown Bannister,[25]Chris Christian,Don Francisco, Fireworks, and Annie and Steve Chapman.[25]
Chuck Smith, founder and pastor ofCalvary Chapel Costa Mesa, led with expositional verse-by-verse Bible studies. While he taught that the gifts seen and described in The New Testament were at work today there were Biblical restrictions on the exercise of those gifts among believers in their services. He baptized members in the Pacific Ocean. Smith was one of the few pastors who welcomed in the hippies who after coming to faith, eventually became known as Jesus people, and thus allowed for the dramatic future growth of a network of affiliate churches.[27]
Steve Freeman and others opened the Kingdom Come Christian Coffee House inGreenville, South Carolina, in 1971. Each Saturday night Jesus People gathered for worship, songs and fellowship. In 1972, several people who were highly involved in the Kingdom Come graduated from high schools and dispersed in several colleges and universities throughout the Southeastern United States and started a Fellowship House Church.[25] Maynard Pittendreigh, Jay Holmes, and Freeman each established one atErskine College, theUniversity of South Carolina, andFurman University respectively. Leadership moved from Steve Freeman to a charismatic preacher namedErskine Holt, a self-described apostle of the movement who lived in Florida. By 1973, nearly every campus throughout Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia had Fellowship House Churches. These generally died out by 1977, with many of the members moving to more traditional campus ministries. However, many moved onto similar ministries in such organizations as Calvary Chapel.[10]
In the UK, theJesus Army (also known as the Jesus Fellowship Church and the Bugbrooke Community) was among the groups most influenced by the Jesus movement, embracing (former) hippies, bikers and drug addicts, among others. Leaders and members of the Jesus Fellowship committed abuse of children and vulnerable adults, with several receiving custodial sentences.[28] The Jesus Fellowship Community Trust closed in December 2020 following the scandal, and issued a Closure Statement including an unreserved apology for the abuse that occurred in the Jesus Fellowship Church (JFC) and the residential New Creation Christian Community (NCCC).[29]
The Shiloh Youth Revival Centers movement was the largest Jesus People communal movement in the United States in the 1970s. Founded by John Higgins in 1968 as a small communal house in Costa Mesa, California, the movement quickly grew into a very large movement catering mostly to disaffected college-age youth. There were 100,000 people involved and 175 communal houses established during its lifespan.[25] Two years after the movement's founding, Higgins and some of the core members of the movement bought 90 acres (360,000 m2) of land nearDexter, Oregon and built a new headquarters which they called "The Land".[30]
"Jesus freak" is a term arising from the late 1960s and early 1970scounterculture and is frequently used as apejorative for those involved in the Jesus movement. AsTom Wolfe illustrates inThe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, the term "freak" with a preceding qualifier was a strictly neutral term and described any counterculture member with a specific interest in a given subject; hence "acid freak" and "Jesus freak".[31] The term "freak" was in common-enough currency thatHunter S. Thompson's failed bid for sheriff ofPitkin County, Colorado, was as a member of the "Freak Power" party.[32]
However, many later members of the movement, those misunderstanding the countercultural roots, believed the term to be negative, and co-opted and embraced the term, and its usage broadened to describe aChristian subculture throughout thehippie andback-to-the-land movements that focused on universal love andpacifism, and relished the radical nature ofJesus' message. Jesus freaks often carried and distributed copies of theGood News for Modern Man,[33] a 1966 translation of theNew Testament written in modern English. In Australia, and other countries, the term "Jesus freak", along with "Bible basher", is still used in a derogatory manner. In Germany, there is a Christian youth culture, also calledJesus Freaks International, that claims to have its roots in the U.S. movement.[34]
... the popularity of books like Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth (1970) mirrored hippie perceptions of the apocalyptic direction of modern America
