Jesus People Movement
The Jesus People Movement emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a religious movement among disenchanted youth who were part of the countercultural hippie movement. Often referred to as "Jesus freaks," these individuals sought a new direction through Christianity, finding community and purpose away from their previous drug-fueled lifestyles. Centered on experiencing salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, the movement shared characteristics with Pentecostalism, including beliefs in the "end times" and practices like speaking in tongues.
Initially rooted in Southern California, the movement rapidly spread across the United States, giving rise to numerous communal groups and organizations, such as Jesus People USA. Over time, it gained momentum through music-focused evangelism, attracting many young people and former runaways. However, the movement faced challenges, including scandals and leadership changes, which led to a reevaluation of its structure and the establishment of stable living arrangements and income sources.
Despite its tumultuous history, the Jesus People Movement significantly influenced evangelical Christianity and contributed to the development of contemporary Christian music, creating a lasting legacy that reshaped religious expression and youth culture in North America.
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Subject Terms
Jesus People Movement
American religious fellowship
The rise of the Jesus People Movement, which came about in reaction to the 1960s counterculture, resulted in many American youth turning toward evangelical Christianity.
By the beginning of the 1970s, the countercultural “hippie” movement that dominated the media in the previous decade had reached its peak, and many disenchanted young adults who were caught up in the free-love culture turned instead to Christianity. Often referred to as Jesus freaks or Jesus People, they avowed fundamental Christian principles, and many found in this new fellowship a substitute for their drug-saturated, runaway lifestyles.
The focus of the Jesus People Movement centered on salvation through an “experience of faith in Jesus Christ.” Like the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century, this youthful group believed in Pentecostalism, assumed the “end times” were near, and often spoke in tongues.
Beginnings
Made up initially of many disparate Christian groups, the Jesus People Movement had its start in Southern California before rapidly dispersing throughout counterculture-oriented missionary groups. In 1971, the National Institutes of Health listed more than three thousand like-minded Christian groups within the United States. Out of this conglomeration of communal groups was born Jesus People USA in 1971.
The founders of the Seattle-based Jesus People Army, Jim and Sue Palosaari and Linda Meissner, migrated to Milwaukee, where they soon attracted twenty-five members and named themselves Jesus People Milwaukee. This initial seed group, which fully embraced the primary principle of dedicating their “entire life, every aspect, to following Jesus Christ,” soon attracted a preponderance of young people, many of them drug addicts and runaways, who had over time become disenchanted with the hippie counterculture.
One of the Jesus People Movement’s guiding forces, John Wiley Herrin, a pastor from the southern United States, joined with his family in October 1971, and the group’s numbers quickly escalated. By November of that year, the Jesus People Movement counted only one hundred members. However, just three months later, thanks in part to “street witnessing,” whereby members went into the streets to attract new recruits, the Jesus People Movement had doubled in size and shortly doubled again.
Before long, the Jesus People Movement’s addition of music into its rallies helped increase its numbers greatly. Two long-haired groups in particular, Resurrection and Jesus Rock, focused on a musical form of evangelism. As a result, the Jesus People Movement’s popularity spread quickly across the Midwest before centering itself in Chicago, where it began a communal residence in Faith Tabernacle Church.
Scandal and Change
By 1974, the Jesus People Movement showed signs of instability when its leader Herrin became involved in a scandal involving a young woman. Glenn Kaiser and Richard Murphy took control. Also, in the same year, the group came to be aligned with charismatic leader Jack Winters of Daystar, a group that practiced a form of corporal discipline “by the rod,” whereby beatings were administered to recalcitrant youth. This association shed continued negative light on the Jesus People Movement.
By the middle of the decade, the Jesus People Movement realized it needed a permanent habitation for its followers and built a residence on Chicago’s Paulina Street. Here it established the Cornerstone magazine, which over time became an influential national religious periodical. Further, in an effort to maintain a more stable income base, the Jesus People Movement established small home repair companies. By the end of the 1970s, the Jesus People Movement merged with a similar black urban Christian group and moved into a hotel near Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive.
Impact
The young followers of the Jesus People Movement, still defiant of the older generation despite a turn to religion, did not return to their parents’ traditional Christian churches but looked instead to the new Jesus Revolution spreading throughout North America. Thus, by embracing the countercultural phenomena of communal Christian living, they were able to maintain the tenets of antiestablishment by still defying governmental and social authority while also adhering to Christian traditions.
The Jesus People Movement phenomenon only later became recognized for its widespread impact upon evangelical Christianity. The Reverend Billy Graham argues that the 1970s Jesus People Movement heralded a new spiritual awakening that caused people to pour into churches across the United States. In addition, the music that sprang out of the Jesus People Movement helped give rise to the subsequently prominent Christian youth culture and the multimillion-dollar Christian contemporary music industry.
Bibliography
Di Sabatino, David. Jesus People Movement: An Annotated Bibliography and General Resource. Portsmouth, N.H.: Greenwood-Heinemann, 1999.
Eskridge, Larry. God’s Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America. Oxford UP, 2013. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=591379&site=ehost-live. Accessed 30 Nov. 2016.
Graham, Billy. The Jesus Generation. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1971.
Schulmanm Bruce J. The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics. New York: Da Capo Press, 2002.
Ward, Hiley H. The Far-Out Saints of the Jesus Communes: A Firsthand Report and Interpretation of the Jesus People Movement. New York: Association Press, 1972.