Jesus Movement

The Jesus movement was a movement in Christianity beginning on the West Coast of the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s and spreading primarily through North America and Europe, before dying out by the early 1980s. It was the major Christian element within the hippie counterculture, or, conversely, the major hippie element within some strands of Protestantism. Members of the movement were called Jesus people, or Jesus freaks.

The Jesus movement left a legacy of various denominations (a branch of the Christian Church) and other Christian organizations, and had an impact on both the development of the contemporary Christian right and the Christian left. Jesus music, which grew out of the movement, greatly influenced contemporary Christian music, helping to create various musical subgenres such as Christian rock and Christian metal.he Jesus movement was restorationist (回复者) in theology, seeking to return to the original life of the early Christians. As a result, Jesus people often viewed churches, especially those in the United States, as apostate（a person who has rejected their religious or political beliefs）, and took a decidedly counter cultural political stance in general. The theology of the Jesus movement also called for a return to simple living and asceticism in some cases. The Jesus people had a strong belief in miracles, signs and wonders, faith, healing, prayer, The Bible, and powerful works of the Holy Spirit.

The movement tended towards strong evangelism and millennialism. Some of the most read books by those within the movement included Ron Sider's Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger and Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth. Perhaps the most illustrative aspect of the Jesus movement was its communal aspect. Many Jesus People lived in communes. Though there were some groups, such as the Calvary Chapel movement, which did not live in communes, these remained more on the fringes of the Jesus movement. Within the commune, the group became more important than the individual and communal sharing of possessions was the norm. One example would be Graham Pulkingham's community described in his book They Left Their Nets. Some of the communes became highly authoritarian.

Secular (属世)and Christian media exposure in 1971 and 1972 caused the Jesus movement to explode across the United States, attracting evangelical youth eager to identify with the movement. The Shiloh communities and the Children of God attracted many new recruits while many other communes and fellowships sprang up. Perhaps the height of the Jesus movement was in the week-long gathering in Dallas, Texas known as Explo '72. This gathering attracted 80,000 young people and brought the hippies of the Jesus movement together with young people from traditional Christian families and churches. The event was organized by the very traditional Campus Crusade for Christ and involved such traditional leaders as Bill Bright and Billy Graham. Many of the 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.

Although the Jesus movement lasted no more than a decade (except for the Jesus People USA which continues to exist in Chicago), its influence on Christian culture can still be seen. Thousands of converts moved into leadership positions in churches and parachurch (not qualified church) organisations. The informality of the Jesus movement's music and worship affected almost all evangelical churches. Some of the fastest growing US denominations of the late 20th century, such as Calvary Chapel, Hope Chapel Churches, and the Vineyard Churches, trace their roots directly back to the Jesus movement, as do parachurch organisations like Jews for Jesus and the multi-million dollar contemporary Christian music industry. 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.

—copy from www.wikipedia.org