Talk:Jesus movement

Afghanistan Reference

Hello. Anyone ever read these pages? I was curious why the Jesus Movement article stated the Jesus Movement spread throughout North America, Europe, and *Afghanistan*. I never knew there was an Afghanistan connection to the Jesus Movement. Can anyone elaborate on this? -- 17:17, 29 January 2003 User:134.84.35.250

REPLY:I'm not the author of this article, but I do recall hearing that during the late '60s and early '70s many American and European hippies went to Afghanistan, primarily for the simple lifestyle, the clothes and fabrics and the plentiful drugs. I'm sure a few Christians went there as well, and possibly some hippies wound up being converted while spending time there. All that changed with the Soviet occupation and subsequent resistance by the mujaheddin, financed by the CIA. The Christian commune I grew up at in Chicago in the '70s was very fond of "Afghan" quilts, rugs, etc.

Afghanistan is still the number one producer in the world of heroin... could this have been encouraged by the CIA? -- 09:21, 24 June 2004 User:202.88.81.160

I'm the originator of the page, and I can state that the previous answer is indeed correct. Afghanistan was a big place on the hippie trail, and a church there originally wanting to relate to Afghanis ended up spending a lot more time relating to the hippies, with large numbers of them joining up in the Jesus Freak movement. Remember, since there is no one leader for this movement, those in Afghanistan didn't have to subscribe to a leader somewhere else in the 1st world to be part of the movement; they just had to conform to the socio-history and practices of that people. -- 22:01, 15 November 2004 User:213.180.240.18

I was an NGO worker in Afghanistan for two years and knew several people who were there back in the sixties and seventies who were there specifically to meet the needs of/minister to the hippies who came through the area, so you are quite right in this.

Removal of Afghanistan Reference

Notwithstanding the dialogue above, I could not find much evidence on the internet to support this claim. I did a google advanced search looking for the word "Afghanistan" at http://one-way.org and http://www.jpusa.org/ and checked the book "Harvest" for the word too. No results. If there was a Jesus movement in Afghanistan it is not alluded to at all by at least these three references.

If someone could provide a relatively strong external link then I'm happy for it to be reinstated. One Salient Oversight 09:21, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This came from a professor of mine at Fuller Seminary, Dr. Dudley Woodberry, who was there and observed it. However, I understand Wikipedia's listing of reliability would not allow for this. Would the new edit be appropriate, being sufficiently vague? -- 10:05, 19 February 2006 User:81.192.172.76

Time magazine, Sept 24, 1973 in an article "The Jesus Evolution" [1]

"The most remote Jesus outpost to date is run by Floyd McClung, who once worked with Youth with a Mission, a go-getting organization that fields some 10,000 part-time young evangelists round the world. McClung, a giant of 6 ft. 6 in., and a group of youths started Dilaram House in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1971. He says: "We identify with the Jesus movement in belief but not in methodology." He means that his ministry−mostly to foreign students, many of them drug users−is easygoing, not lapel-grabbing. This is a wise policy, since Afghanistan has a fiercely Moslem regime that just tore down the only church in the nation."

Relevant, but probably not sufficient John Campbell 09:59, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Jesus People Movement

Between 1975-1981,I compiled a history of the local Jesus People movement in La Crosse,Wisconsin.The notes and memoranda are now at the area research center at Eugene Murphy Library -University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.The local Jesus People Movement evolved into some pentecostal,charismatic churches in the area.I thought this was important enough to submit.Thank you- Richard F. Dungar-La Crosse,Wisconsin RFD 13:40, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Excluded Middle?

I have some familiarity with Jesus People and I don't know that the "Law of the Excluded middle" was/is a hot topic for them. Can anyone justify this reference?

If anything, their simplistic theology would imply they accepted the Law of the Excluded Middle (everything is either/or, there is no compromise or middle ground). I suggest this sentence needs to go unless someone can find a reliable source for it, or indeed for the opposite proposition that their theology was based on the Law of the Excluded Middle. John Campbell 09:59, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Re-reading, I think this sentence was phrased unhelpfully. I now take it to mean: "Accepting the law of the excluded middle, they rejecting the middle ground" which is undoubtedly correct. John Campbell 10:00, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I have since found what appears to be an entirely different meaning for Excluded Middle here: Flaw of the Excluded Middle. Put simply, this "Excluded Middle" separates the spiritual and the physical worlds; rejecting it means a belief system that allows the spiritual realm to interact with the physical. In which case, the original sentence makes sense, but is too obscure to stand. John Campbell (talk) 08:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Jesus Music Industry?

"Jesus Music, began as an industry", from all that I have read and heard discusses, Jesus Music began not as an industry but as an extension of the faith and close tied to music that was held by some of the early hippie and counter-culture converts. The Jesus music article backs this latter view. I don't know the history of that phrase but will be chaging it soon unless there is strong objection. --Walter Görlitz 19:09, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikify to two seperat articles

This article needs to be split into two seperate articles. For right now I'm going to delete the scant information about early Christians--as it is poor style. A stub for the antiquarian Jesus Movement and a disambiguation needs to be done eventually. --Brentt 05:24, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely. We need Disambiguation and a separate article on the first-century Jesus Movement (or Yeshua movement). Das Baz, 6 May 2006, 12:20 Noon.

Christian Awakening?

This 4th/5th Great Awakening was primarily non-Christian. To be an Awakening means that the society radically changes, in American history, not that it simply has a revival. These two are separate yet linked ideas. It simply has historically, until the 1960's, been a Christian event in America. See Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform by William McLoughlin. --Abdul Muhib

Factual accuracy

I've removed a few sentences that I think may be factually inaccurate. I think they contradict this source: http://www.calvarychapel.com/assets/pdf/lastTimesFall1981.pdf and the second one doesn't seem to add up logically. Frisbee was only with Calvary from around 67/68 to 71, so it seems hard for him to have started the church as it began in 65. Additionally, they had already grow out of several buildings before Frisbee came, so it doesn't seem like he was the reason for its growth. Nor could he be the reason for the continued growth since he left in 71. The original author gave no source (nor for any of the article), so I have removed it all on the basis of WP:V. The sentences are the following:

Although there were some like the Calvary Chapel movement who did not, these remained more on the fringe of the movement.

who along with Chuck Smith started the Calvary Chapel movement. Most churches in the United States rejected the Jesus Freaks. Frisbee was the primary evangelist and responsible for the growth of the Calvary churches; Smith was one of the few pastors who welcomed in the Jesus Freaks, and thus allowed for the dramatic future growth of his affiliate church network.

--Basar 06:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Factual accuracy

Thank you for the link to that source. However, I'd say that source is heavily biased. When I started this article long ago I wasn't aware of Wikipedia's guidelines on sources, so here's one: http://www.lonniefrisbee.com/- which I believe has been added by another user to the bottom of this article. It must be stressed that, while that site confirms aspects of Lonnie's life, his contribution was well known by many before it appeared on that site, with the accompanying movie. It is not as if the creater of the website made up these facts- he found them out through first person research, including talking to my parents.

We seem to have two competing websites that state different information. It points out that any website can say anything they want, as can a wikipedia article. How can we know which is correct? I would suggest the one I have cited has more veracity. Why? Because it indicates the probable reason for bias on the Calvary website. Why would a primary contributer to the growth of your church be removed from the history of that church? If your an evangelical church, perhaps because he was gay and died of AIDS. See in particular http://www.lonniefrisbee.com/whowas.htm. It would be a sad thing indeed if the attempt by Calvary to erase his contributions were upheld by wikipedia because of anti-gay bias. (Not that I'm accusing Basar of such at all.)

Questions

The stuff on this page seems to end rather abruptly in 1973. I'd be curious as to what happened to various leaders and participants in this movement in the '80s and '90s and beyond. Did they get absorbed into the growing evangelical movement? What about their politics? Can the modern Christian Left trace its roots back to the Jesus movement?

I've split the section on Decline and Legacy and written a general section on Legacy, based largely on an article in Encyclopedia of Christianity and consequently removed the Original Research tag from the section. I think the answers to your questions are yes and yes, by the way. John Campbell (talk) 17:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, surely Martin Luther did not say ""why should the devil have all the best tunes?"! --Jfruh 20:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

According to Glimpses #154, they have the entire quote from Luther which reads:

"I am not of the opinion that all arts are to be cast down and destroyed on account of the Gospel, as some fanatics protest. On the other hand, I would gladly see all arts, especially music, in the service of Him who has given and created them. Why should the devil have all the good music?"[2]

Kulturvultur (talk) 17:00, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Jesus Army

The material that UKamp attempted to add regarding the Jesus Army really belongs on the Jesus Army page if anywhere. But it needs to be stripped of POV and sourced according to Wiki principles first. John Campbell (talk) 18:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Un-American?!?

Apparently someone who worked on this article has a bias against anything casting a positive light on the anti-Vietnam war protestors as personified by the Jesus Movement. If protest is "un-American", then anyone who has worked to make this nation a better place for all human beings (including slavery abolitionists, suffragettes and early labor union members) is "un-American."

Such a comment puts into dispute the objectivity of this article, and I respectfully ask for that term to be deleted immediately.

Kulturvultur (talk) 16:53, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

The term used in the article is anti-American, which has a different meaning. However, I can't see its use as NPOV as the Jesus People referred to were presumably American themselves. "Against US government policies", may be acceptable. It is also unsourced and ought really to have a Reliable Source to back up the assertion. John Campbell (talk) 10:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

See Also

The "See Also" section contains links to Wikipedia articles already linked from the body of the article and links to peripherally relevant (and largely irrelevant) articles. The only link that stands out as justifiable is the one to the Jesus freak article. Any comments before I act ruthlessly? John Campbell (talk) 12:13, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. John Campbell (talk) 13:12, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Personal experience

I have recently reverted a series of edits by AngelinaR. For better or worse, we are co-operating on an encyclopedia, not writing personal history. Under Wikipedia rules, personal experience counts as original research and is not allowed. Equally, the article is not to represent one's own Point of View, but to be a digest of a range of views. John Campbell (talk) 10:47, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Jesus Movement (Early Christianity)?

The term "Jesus Movement" is often used as term among historians to refer to the followers of Jesus prior to a schism with Judaism-- i.e. before Christianity began to be regarded as a separate religion. Any thoughts on creating an article just on the use of the term and why scholars use it, the history of the term, the train of thought that led to the use of the term?

I think Jesus Movement would certainly still go to this article on the 20th century movement, but if anyone wanted to take a stab at writing about the 1st century movement in the Jesus Movement (Early Christianity) article, I'd encourage it. --Alecmconroy (talk) 11:48, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

External Links

The list of external links is growing, and it has been suggested that it resembles a link farm. As per Wiki procedure I have tagged the page to invite some pruning. I am sure some of the links, perhaps the majority, are of value. But please comment. John Campbell (talk) 13:14, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Which links would you like to prune? I haven't looked at them, but suggesting unnecessary links seems to be a better policy than leaving it open and asking for feedback. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:16, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I added a link to Jesus People USA because I think it appropriately provides a look into how the movement evolved. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 13:43, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: a map

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Christian music festivals in 1975.

View

I wrote a map, as a dynamically generated template, of Christian music festivals in the year 1975. I'm not necessarily sure that that map is relevant to this article, but it occurs to me that a similar map of Jesus movement era communes would be an excellent visual aid for this article. Unfortunately, while this topic is an area of interest for me, my research into it is quite surface. Can someone recommend how to build (or produce) a list of communes (with references)? I think a list should include city, organization, years active, and maybe others details. Dan, the CowMan (talk) 21:04, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It would make a good addition to the Beliefs and practices section. The question is, does anyone have a complete and definitive list of Christian communes?--Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:22, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Children Of God/Tony Alamo/The Way/The Local Church (Witness Lee)

I believe that these groups, while certainly spawned by the Jesus Movement, should be singled out as aberations/cults and not part of the norm. All these groups used various forms of physical and psycological intimidation, and the Children Of God practiced sexual immorallity as a form of evangelisim. Along with this, they all had a non-traditional, unbiblical, view of the person of Christ. As a person who was heavily involved in the Jesus Movement in northeast Ohio, we were constantly battling these groups' influence on new believers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.88.188.242 (talk • contribs)

Jesus Music

As a former "Jesus Freak", I cannot overstress how much the music drove the Jesus movement, at least between 1970 and 1976. It was not an "industry" as stated in the article, but a group of "music ministers" who would play at any church or school, coffeehouse,or park, no matter how big or small. Little money was generated from ticket sales; but records, and tapes were alway available on a table near the door. I still treasure my original copies of albums by Love Song, Honeytree, Larry Norman, Second Chapter of Acts, and others, bought at these concerts. I am suprised, that nothing was written about the large venue, outdoor, "Woodstock-like" festivals that were held all over the country. Hundreds of Jesus People camping out in the dirt, rain, and mud in order to hear a couple days of Jesus Music and buy food, records, books, and "Jesus Junk" from vendors in makeshift tents. The yearly festivals in Pennsylvania, (Jesus 73, 74, etc.) were amazing. For me, the Jesus Movement ended in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in July of 1976 at the "Greatest Bicenteniall, Premillenial, Jesus Concert Ever". An all day concert featuring some big names, and small, and MC'd by Mike Warnke; it was marred by open bickering between the people onstage, and low attendance and boredom from the audience. Honeytree tried desperately to save the day by leading worship songs at the end, accompanied by most of the other musicians, but everyone I talked to left very sad. In the next year, the leaders of the local Jesus People groups in our area seemed to wake up and realize they weren't hippie teenagers anymore. They either tried starting actual churches (sone successfully, some not), or just went on to secular jobs and raising families. Jesus Music became the CCM industry, and Calvary Chapel begat Vineyard, and all was "well" with Christianity in the USA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.88.188.242 (talk) 16:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)